The Centre for Research on Start-ups and Risk Financing (CREST), an Institute of Eminence Research Centre at IIT Madras on Monday announced it has launched India’s first information platform on incubators and accelerators. The platform was formally launched by Telangana Principal Secretary of IT and Member, Board of Directors of T-Hub, the largest incubator in India, Jayesh Ranjan, recently here in the presence of Prof. Thillai Rajan, A., Professor at the Department of Management Studies, IIT Madras, and Principal Investigator of CREST. Prof. Thillai Rajan is also the Founder and Director of YNOS Venture Engine. The platform, developed in partnership with YNOS, an IIT Madras-incubated start-up, contains comprehensive information on incubators and accelerators, which play an important role in helping start-ups navigate an uncertain entrepreneurial ecosystem, the institute said in a release here. While India had about 1,000 active incubators, until now, the information about them was scattered and not easily available in a single location. Entrepreneurs had to spend a lot of time and effort to identify the incubator most suitable for their start-up. The platform developed by CREST addresses this pain-point and helps the start-up founders to identify, compare and analyse incubators very easily.
Called ‘Incubators’, this AI-powered platform will help start-up founders to identify incubators and accelerators across India and shortlist one that best fits their requirements. The Incubators Platform would also benefit the CEOs and Managers of incubation centres to get the attention of start-up founders for their incubation centres and benchmark themselves against comparable incubators and constantly improve their effectiveness. Other stakeholders associated with the development of the start-up ecosystem such as educational institutions, government and funding agencies, would also benefit from this platform. Congratulating CREST, IIT Madras and YNOS for developing this platform, Dr. Jayesh Ranjan, said, “The growth of the Indian start-up ecosystem depends on a strong incubator ecosystem. Research has shown that there is a direct correlation between start-up formation and number of incubators. Recognizing this, various governments have focused on strengthening the incubation ecosystem in the country.” “There is no doubt that the platform would significantly benefit entrepreneurs by presenting various incubation opportunities available to them and helping them to identify the perfect incubator for their start-up”, he said. “I congratulate Prof. Thillai Rajan and his team for conceptualising this platform and developing this for the benefit of the start-up community,” he added. Elaborating on the need for such tools, Prof. A. Thillai Rajan said, “During the initial few months after incorporation, start-ups face a high degree of uncertainty. The Incubators help the start-up founders at multiple levels: Firstly, it gives an exhaustive list of incubators in the country that start-up founders can reach out to for incubation support. Secondly, it provides information on various parameters which helps start-up founders to identify incubators suited for their requirement.”